To mark the launch of the Think2030 paper ‘How digitalisation can help or hamper in the climate crisis’, Think Sustainable Europe held an online briefing breakfast on June 4, 2021 with experts from both digital and sustainability fields to hear about sound, science-based analysis and recommendations for integrating digital and sustainability agendas in the EU.

Ferdinando Villa, Ikerbasque Professor at the Basque Centre for Climate Change (BC3) and ARIES Lead Investigator, was part of the line-up of speakers together with Suzanne Hoadley, Senior Manager & Traffic Efficiency Coordinator at Polis, and Ilias Iakovidis, Adviser for Digital Aspects of Green Transformation of the Communications Networks, Content and Technology DG at the European Commission.

During the one-hour discussion, Ferdinando used the example of ARIES to emphasize and demonstrate how digitalisation and Artificial Intelligence (AI) can support communication between decision-makers and scientists by supporting the building of a new democracy that is driven by the integration of knowledge.

According to ARIES’ lead investigator, knowledge integration across all disciplines is key to dissemination and perusal of scientific products across all sectors of society: not only scientists and decision-makers, but also citizens, whose engagement is key to drive the building of trust and eventually bridge the divide between science and policy.

Think Sustainable Europe is a network of European sustainability think tanks that brings together leading institutions summing decades of experience in critical research and policy advice. It is composed by the Institute for European Environmental Policy (IEEP), BC3, Ecologic Institute, the Green Tank, the Institute for Sustainable Development and International Relations (IDDRI), the Europe office of the International Institute for Sustainable Development (IISD), Stockholm Environment Institute (SEI) and the Think Tank for Sustainability (TMG).

Watch the full event in the video below and learn more about the vision behind ARIES.

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